Flea The Race

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More de-camping chit chat with John my neighbour in the Hawaiian shirt this morning, he brought me over a bowl of porridge and handed it into my tent this morning, made how he likes it after I told him last night that I bought some at the start of my trip, made it once then threw it all in the bin because it tasted like muck, I wanted to like it because it’s a real convenient food to travel with on the bike with.  John eats it for breakfast, dinner and I’m not sure about supper but he lives off the stuff!  He handed me the bowl with the tag “you don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it” so I said I’d give it a go, he puts raisins and maple syrup in it with a sprinkle of granola on top, he forgot the granola so he came over again and handed me in the bag so that I could get the full experience.  I ate it all and it certainly was much better tasting than my efforts, still I won’t be rushing out to get me another bag of oatmeal anytime soon, it’s too slimy!  He told me that his wife died 3 years ago so I’m even more impressed about his adventure and positivity, he is also carrying the ashes of a friend of his that died, tossing a bit out at various points along the way.  He told me he has limited vision in his left eye after a work accident back in 2000 working on the side of a house something fell, a hammer I think, that ripped out his Lens and Iris, pain on the level he has never experienced before, he has limited vision mostly best at the periphery.  I hate eye stories

The randomness on the road today was the best yet, I met lots of people that this road trip is starting to feel like one extended festival, first up was Oscar a guy in his mid twenties from the UK cycling from Vancouver to San Francisco.  I was taking time out half way up a hill when he came striding by on two wheels and stops to say hi, I told him the details of my trip and he responded with “oh I heard about you”, looks like we’re all moving in the same direction passing on details about the other people we meet along the way! We rode a few kilometres together into a town named Garberville where we decided to grab food together at a Mexican food hut, I got me the surfer burrito which is a normal burrito smothered in mole and sour cream, it was exactly what we needed and went down a treat.  After the burrito I clapped eyes on the same cycling posse I’ve met now 3 days in a row, all stopped up across the road from the burrito bar.  Oscar and I parted company but I got his email and plan to meet up with him in San Francisco for a beer in a few days time whenever I arrive.

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I got chatting with the cycle posse again, one of the guys had all his clothes and sleeping bag laid out in the sun in the carpark they were chilling at, he said he didn’t make up his tent properly last night and it pissed rain drowning all his stuff in the process, naaaasty!  I was planning on camping with these guys tonight in Standish Hickey State Park about 30km away from where we were so I went in to Ray’s Grocery Store and bought some beer, smokes and food for the campsite later, they had wine so I was looking forward to getting to the camp early, getting set up and having a couple of beers.  I had one beer in Gaberville after that in search of WiFi but I never found any so left and made my way to the campsite.

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On my way to the campsite there was a pretty decent climb uphill starting about 15km before my destination, the sun was out and it was hot hot, I saw another touring cyclist in the distance that I didn’t recognise, there was also a bridge over pass coming up with a nice band of shadow that I had my eye set on as a break from the hill.  When I got to the bridge the other cyclist was also there panting form the heat and hill so we got talking, his name is Sasha of Russian origin but adopted by a family in the US, he’s 25 and a total dude, very entertaining guy, we sat and chatted for a while out of the sun, he takes out his pipe and we smoke some, I take out my beers and we drink some, just sitting there under the bridge out of the heat!  He started in Washington, all his gear is borrowed and he is making his way south with no times or plans, he travels with no money so he gets by on the generosity of others he meets along the way and by the sounds of things he’s been doing pretty alright this far.  After a while, out of the heat became cold so we moved our asses out from under the bridge and out onto the sunny hill of the freeway, we must have been there an hour or more before we decided to get going and to look for a place to setup camp together for the night, we found a deadly wooded spot a few kilometres away just off the freeway.  Here we got some food going, polished off the six pack, may have had a smoke or two more before heading off to bed for the night.  Random twisty day, I never quite made it to the other group camping a few miles up the road, I might get them yet before I hit San Francisco, their final stop.